Shadow work helps dig out the deeper things holding you back that may be hidden from view and you may not be aware of today.
It’s work and discovery you do on yourself that pays off as you learn more about your inner self so you can better shine in your authentic and best you you’re meant to be.
And you can find your loving self and steer away from your darker sides that cast shadows in your life.
I know this from my own journey. I was a late bloomer for many years and areas of life. And just when things were coming together nicely, then all of the sudden around 35, I went into a now what do I do? season.
I was hit with a spiritual intervention and no roadmap life manual to help me along that season.
Life springs things on you where you have no concrete guide to follow. No one teaches you that a spiritual intervention can happen at any time in your life journey on your life blueprint that you don’t have access to.
A spiritual intervention is not commonly heard of but it does happen in this miracle we call Life.
And yeah, that’s what happened to me.
Before I get into the details, the reality is we’re not in as much control of our planned future as we want to think.
We get to choose to believe in faith over what we think is our future based on our past and what we’re currently working on.
And believe that a greater force above has our back and a better plan than we (or I ) can come up with.
That was the journey I was on…
And in what appeared to be my spun out-of-my control season, I ended up relocating back to where I came from when I had no plans or thoughts to do so.
…I was blind-sided by my own moves.
It was more shocking to me than to my friends and family who were happy to hear I was moving closer back to the area.
It was a healthy, spiritual purpose-driven move, even though it was unconventional as spiritual changes and growth often are.
The days leading up to my move, the healthy marriage I was in fell apart because of the intervention reveals that made the step-to-step moves easier.
There was sadness leaving, but no drama… almost as though life is meant to be a surprise from day-to-day.
Let me backtrack for a second…
Because the life changing event was that I ended up in a hospital with no physical health diagnosis.
There was nothing wrong with me.
What appeared as a mental breakdown, I knew as a spiritual awakening.
Is that how you diagnose inner voices?
Apparently in our earthly dimensional world.
…The immediate trauma reality I felt when I was released was the sting of the hospital bill.
…Ouch and oh btw, I would have to pack my life up today and start all over with new work, step back, and build a new adult life while the world around me kept going.
I couldn’t even tell you the songs playing on the radio waves then or what the major news headlines were going on.
Those few final days and weeks before were a total blur.
I must’ve thrown out many scrapbook album memories in the preparation for my move.
Discarding my past was a metaphor representation of how I felt with this new life ahead of me.
It was nothing less than an invisible higher force that took over and moved me one step at a time.
I got closer to my spirit than I’d ever been in my life.
Up to that point, I didn’t know that I had a Holy Spirit inside me.
And I knew this as God co-creating and ordering my footsteps for my good (it’s always FOR good), who got in the car with me and drove me back to the area I had left where my GPS didn’t work.
It was a bit surreal.
My hand was on the wheel, so I felt safe even though I was confused. Jesus Take the Wheel was a very accurate way to describe what was going on as I felt safe.
…So then there I was back to the area where I grew up and lived most my life, except now with a higher plan that I expected would unfold.
An old church friend, God-wink coincidentally had a room available as her last roommate had just moved out. she and I had been on a missions trip together years before and we felt chills up our spines volunteering in the soup kitchen.
I’d felt those tingly feelings before and never knew what that was.
Connecting the dots in shadow work, that was the spirit in me that clear as day was with me from the moment I woke to the moment I fell asleep whispering to me truths before and after hospital experience.
Hundreds of miles away, even though I was in the same familiar area I grew up in, it seemed miles away from where I grew up.
This time around I was closer to the city and further away from the towns where many of my first memories of childhood and early adulthood were formed.
Some memories were accumulated past trauma from childhood and early adulthood that I needed shadow work for to help me discover forgiveness.
And others were happy memories from friendships and past experiences made.
It was a bittersweet come back.
I was then recently laid off from a career job I had been at for years, so I had to lean on trust that I would be provided for during those recession years that wiped out businesses and the corporate tech industry I had just come from.
But this life altering event wasn’t about just a move, a job change, or a season transition.
…This was a life transformation.
I was entering a new way of life on earth that was foreign to me with the spirit leading where the cascade of events leading up were so bizarre.
Even though I felt secure under the Universe’s wing, I didn’t know how to start this new shaken up chapter of life.
Now what? kept coming up in my thoughts.
One of my first set of tests was letting go.
I didn’t know how to surrender my old thinking ways.
And that’s when I got really deep into introspection and shadow work and trying to figure out what happened.
Miraculously, planted in me was the awareness of harmful ego ways and that surfaced and became a theme.
With a little freed up headspace from not being so work busy, I became aware that I had healing work to do on myself.
I had never paused before from work to successfully get to know the real me. And I worked in professional environments where at work you were “on” and guarded, so the real personal didn’t show up.
On my off time, I went to church healing rooms to see if I could gain a little insight and closure about what happened to me.
I got some comfort and was able to purge some past trauma that had to do with childhood.
This was as close to learning about myself and my life now as I would get.
Life Before The Spiritual Intervention
I was always choosing to be busy and that was ingrained in me in the DC metro area culture I grew up in and was now back in.
But this time around, my surroundings were quiet as my friends were grown up too.
They were busy with their family and lives.
I had to figure mine out.
My life looked nothing like most those I went to college with where they moved up the corporate ladder, settled down, and had a family.
They lived close by but our world’s were far apart.
I felt alone in navigating what next, but I also felt optimistic that my life would take off because of the spiritual intervention experience I had lived out in the hospital that showed me some prophecies about work and relationships in my distance-off future.
I knew there was a plan but I just didn’t know when, how, and what the real life specifics were.
And when some life pieces came to life like people I would meet, I recognized them later on as shown to me in prophecies.
Those were miracles, and it all sounded bizarre on paper and yet made sense.
That’s how it felt… beautiful and bizarre.
And at the end of the day, none of us know the uncertain future so nothing looked that unusual about me or my life from an outside onlooker.
One area I knew I could focus on building was my deeper spiritual self and building traits I would need (and may have missed developing along the way).
Ego work was just the tip of the iceberg for my shadow work.
As mentioned, I was in and grew up around America’s capital.
This is an area filled with cultured, affluent people where pride and ego are waved as invisible badges of honor.
You become self-absorbed at the least and selfish at the worst. Neither lead to happy lives that I’d always wanted.
So now I was ready to get rid of those non-serving ways.
People living there in short transition or temporary assignments don’t realize how strong the political daily air is there outside the news until they arrive.
And I didn’t know until I left and then came back.
DC lives in a unique invisible bubble that rarely gets talked about as ego is not usually a subject matter of discussion.
And I’m sure growing up in the L.A. area would be a different bubble than the DC or New York City area…
But D.C. metro was what I knew.
So, now you know the situation better.
And a year before this new season’s reveal, I was made aware I was holding onto past trauma from childhood and an adult situation that created PTSD I had blindly been holding onto.
I didn’t go to any therapy. It was self-therapy supplied my spirit. It was an inside job and that’s the only kind I can recommend.
That’s what a spiritual intervention, journaling, and shadow work can help reveal.
To provide more color, I grew up under the house of an immigrant parent who had a dominant ego disorder that grew worse over time.
And after I moved off to be on my own, I fell victim to a dangerous work situation in a brick and mortar business.
This all came to light in this revealing spiritual intervention season years later.
I realized my past situations grew my victim mentality.
And that fed my ego that loves to hang onto woes me for my situations.
It’s the same ego that thrives on protecting our pride and does so much damage in all of us, showing up in all kinds of daily, harmful non-serving ways…
If you’ve worked around people long enough, you will have seen this and not necessarily known that it was their ego that created their undesirable perceptions and behaviors that they were blind to and you were affected on their blindsided path.
Our ego is our shadow until we become aware.
It’s under our conscious (sub-conscious).
Bringing out your shadow into the light is the shadow work that can align you to your whole self where your life begins to unfold more purpose and meaning.
I became ego conscious-aware that my ego played me in my subconscious insecurities (as it does for most unaware people and situations).
In my earlier adult years, I could be emotionally triggered and all of the sudden be stricken with an ugly cry in relationships.
Clingy wasn’t my manifestation but power struggles was. My ego reared its ugly head wanting me to be right and win in partner conflicts.
In my emotional state, instead I lost the debate and all conscious streams of thinking that came from allowing the ego game to be played in me.
…I didn’t know how to shake off or walk away from my turmoil feelings that started out as harmless thoughts.
That was inner work I needed to do.
A real life mirror (partner) had reflected back to me what I needed to work on.
I ignored those prompts until I was aware of the ego as separate from me years later.
Today’s Lessons
Your old brain is still a part of you that you carry along wherever you go.
When you’ve moved on, your past memories and old lessons learned never die.
You can’t escape them.
They travel with you and show up on your vacations when you least expect.
If you’ve ever seen couples or friends fighting on vacation and you wonder, what’s there to fight about on this dreamy once-in-a-lifetime beautiful serene blue ocean or castle fantasy backdrop?… it’s the ego rearing its ugly head into the situation as they’re like two lions fighting for life.
At any time, your ego can take old information filed in the brain and create fear and exacerbate worry in your situations today…
The cure? Bring love to the situation.
Tell yourself: “I am loved.”
That’s why I’m so passionate about the healthy mind-body connection today that I learned about before doing shadow work.
If you bring out love from your past situations to your present, it shows up in your calm emotions today and also in your healthy body.
Ego situations and how they play out look different for everyone. If we could pinpoint one situation for everyone we would have figured this out collectively. But ego is a trickster.
Some even refer to their ego as an imposter that shows up.
The outward sign is that it’s not reality happening even though it feels like it is to you or the person. You’re not being chased by a tiger, but it can feel that way with modern digital message triggers.
Unknowingly, you undetect where the havoc source is coming from as it’s subconscious.
You can’t see through those thick clouds and insecurities. And that can lead to knee-jerk reactions.
Another sign for everyone is an unhealthy ego acting up is rooted in negative thoughts about yourself or others like self-pity, self-loathing, or blaming others.
It’s Edging God Out. The opposite is love and being conscious.
An unhealthy ego moment is a twisted form of overprotection for your best interest where you lose, lose control, and those around you lose if they get intertwined.
Bottom line: it doesn’t come from love.
Everyone is best to walk away in peace rather than play the counterproductive ego games.
Becoming aware of ego’s ability to harm you and relationships today and healing your past with new rewritten loving narrative thought memories are two of the healthiest shadow work moves you can make.
On a larger scale, you can rid of victim mentality so you can live fully whole and healthy in the now. You can be happy for others and their progress as you are for your own.
The ego will try to make these darker sides invisible to you so you continue as is, but if your desire is to grow and be happy, you can outwit your ego and not play the games.
We all are damaged goods in some way because of this built-in ego feature that we have a choice to change. It’s no one’s fault.
And that’s why when you’ve been aware long enough you can forgive others for their unconsciousness and behaviors… and hope they will try to get informed, grow, become conscious, and be accountable for their behaviors.
The Healthy Shadow Work You Can Do Today
So many of us would benefit from shadow work.
For one, you could discover and change negative moods coming from inside you. You could learn more about what triggers you.
You can replace these non-serving moments with higher and loving words such as those found in the New Testament Scripture.
“Do not be conformed to this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your mind.”
A daily reminder verse to call out your ego thoughts front and center daily helps.
You can build lasting character traits such as those in Galatians 5: patience, kindness, goodness, self-control, peace, joy, and love. These are the higher living ways.
They can take deep inner work and the first step can be shadow work discovery.
Becoming self-aware is timeless and absolutely necessary for growth.
And knowing the ego never shuts off and can show up in many ways in our mind roles such as:
critic
judge
competitor
fighter
dictator
imposter
One role ego doesn’t play is peacemaker. When ego is behaving and healthy, it helps you to strive for healthy goals.
We need some healthy pride to push us along. Or if you’re in real danger, ego can help motivate you to protect you.
But the undealt with unhealthy daily ego critic sitting on one shoulder shouts loud thoughts that appear logical to you (or the person), while the whispering angel spirit in you is gentle and loving preferring humility over pride.
The more you practice the softer humility sides, the more you can see the harmful pride.
Ego is subtle to you…
If you have a balanced way or a sense of making good decisions usually, logic can appear as harmless as “everyone is doing that.”
In those thought moments, you have a choice to not be everyone and do what you know is best or loving when you know better. We all have a choice.
If your ego is fighting you, you can be prepared with spiritual weapons like the armor of God spelled out in Ephesians, and in renewing your mind.
The more preparation and practice you have, your discernment increases the next time and you grow.
Still wondering how the ego shows up?…
So, I used to let the ego run the show. The daily mind show that is where I accepted all thoughts to enter as mine.
Some days a whole day would go by with the same repeated past memories. That’s classic ego.
I didn’t know I could exercise changing my thoughts. That was revelation when I learned and how to replace the thoughts.
Even if you had a great childhood or life so far, your ego will at some point take something from your past and spin it to a negative thought even if others would see it as a healthy and happy moment. It’s in your control to change the narrative fed to you.
Being the observer of thoughts and not letting the thoughts play out after the thought movie reel has been played once is a good strategy, so you don’t lose a whole day of productivity and peace.
And then stay aware the next time. You can make a decision that there’s no room for the two of us as it’s cramping growth, and simply kick out your unhealthy ego. Don’t play the games.
Sometimes it take mental wresting strength to let the thoughts pass through without energizing them to replay. Be determined to do what you know will eventually work for you.
And as part of my light bulb moment discovery, I found that ego was not just once in a while playing havoc in our lives, it’s the source of most problems in our day.
Because the ego is a feature in all of us in this world. Behaviors are trickled down among other people involved and their operating egos.
Imagine if the leader of a group or business had ego issues that showed up. You could only imagine (or have experienced before) the tricked down dysfunctional effect in the management hierarchy.
This observation becomes more obvious when you know (or have been made aware like I may be stirring in you today).
You witness in your daily interactions with people… one minute they are agreeable and friendly and then one day the season ends and they turn out to be something else. They’re unaware they’re being played by their ego.
This happens in relationships all the time and is at the crux of partner power struggles.
Without the harmful ego aspects, our world would be a better place because we would be better acting humans, heal ourselves, and those around us.
But until my hospital incident, I didn’t know how destructive the subconscious and invisible ego is on our planet, in our lives, and in me.
Shadow work examples such as going to therapy or light journaling tools can help open the doors to discover more of your deeper and hidden self.
The answers are inside you so deeper spiritual self-help may help you like healing rooms did for me.
And in my spiritual intervention rebirth.
Leading up to that point, these shadow work resources helped and can help to open the awareness…
What Did Help and Can Help You in Shadow Work Discovery
Turning to some self-help books opened my eyes. One in particular, Eckart Tolle’s The Power of Now is one of those books that comes alive in your when you’re ready for the message because your spirit lights it up.
It’s a deep book that you’re either ready for or not. You’ll know if you are because your eyes won’t glaze over the sentences. And when it’s an easy flow read, the chains have been released and the pain-body is exposed. The book is an experience. It can be so powerful that you may only need to read it once to gain the knowledge, and it’s forever in you.
That opened the spirit inside me like a lotus flower to make more room for awareness when my spiritual intervention season entered years later. 🪷
The Bible was another spiritual book I had as a tool. I had let the contents and words of Scripture occupy space and spill over inside me. 📖
You can re-read Scripture over and over again and find new tidbits of wisdom and helpful Biblical truth. You don’t get the same experience each time.
New words can jump off the page with meaning to you when you’re ready. Like my eyes skipped over the mysterious “spirit” word on the pages until I was ready.
The Bible is an instructional self-help life manual and is the only book that’s still being translated in so many languages.
Letting the higher words permeate to brain wash out all the muck that occupies the day for things that won’t matter in the years to come, is life giving.
Those are good starters.
And then be open and let your life’s journey unfold.
There’s so much more to this world and it’s inside you. As Deepak Chopra says, “the world is in you.”
“I am not in the world. The world is in me.” – Deepak Chopra
Doing deeper shadow work is underrated and will produce so much more in you and out of you as you impact the world with your greatness you were born with and can be born again with. 🎉
Always always remember, you are loved.
